


The Nameless

by dragonspell



Series: The Nameless [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, M/M, Omega Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 04:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10586040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonspell/pseuds/dragonspell
Summary: They skitter around him, over him, through him.  Ants on a hill.  A cuff attaches to his arm, Velcro snapping in place.  His other arm is opened up, the wiring and interior circuits poked and prodded.  One ant makes a notation on a chart, quickly scribbling and moving on. They have no names.  Like him, they are no one.  Some would disagree if he said so.  Some would grow angry with him.  They would try to argue or punish him.  In the end, however, he will go back into the ice and nothingness and when he awakes again, they will all be gone, names and faces erased with new ones having taken their place long ago.  They will have had no meaning, no impact, no lasting legacy—no name.There is a faint hint in the air, a taste that tempts the edge of his tongue, makes something dead inside of him wish to stir again.  He knows that it is due to the ants that scurry around him, but he does not know why.  This is their sweetness that coils around him, possessing a distant echo that bids his dead flesh to rise.  It is something that he should know, but he does not.(Or, Hydra has kept alpha!Bucky chemically neutered, but they cannot account for omega!Steve.  Plays fast and loose with canon.)





	

They skitter around him, over him, through him. Ants on a hill. They are secure in their restraints, in their walls and locks. They exist hundreds of feet below the surface, where nothing ever touches them. A cuff attaches to his arm, Velcro snapping in place. His other arm is opened up, the wiring and interior circuits poked and prodded. One ant makes a notation on a chart, quickly scribbling and moving on. 

They have no names. Like him, they are no one. Some would disagree if he said so. Some would grow angry with him. They would try to argue or punish him. In the end, however, he will go back into the ice and nothingness and when he awakes again, they will all be gone, names and faces erased with new ones having taken their place long ago. They will have had no meaning, no impact, no lasting legacy—no name.

Very few have their names remembered.

There is a faint hint in the air, a taste that tempts the edge of his tongue, makes something dead inside of him wish to stir again. He knows that it is due to the ants that scurry around him, but he does not know why. This is their sweetness that coils around him, possessing a distant echo that bids his dead flesh to rise. It is something that he should know, but he does not. Another thing lost in the fog of blood and pain. It is meaningless. All that matters is his next mission.

He does what he is bid, goes where he is told, and returns to the bleak nothingness of the ice. What else is there beyond cold emptiness and the pain to be endured beforehand?

“Jesus Christ,” one says quietly as he enters the room. He is not one of the ants, missing their sweet scent and hurried, busied movements, but he is just as nameless, just as disposable. Scent neutral, he is one of the agents that spends his days training, over and over—an arm to wield a tool and feet to get it there. He is also one that thinks that some day he might be allowed a name. One day soon a bullet will rip through him, destroying the body that he has worked so hard to build, leaving him broken and bleeding out where he has fallen because no one will care. 

His face is one of shock and disbelief as he stares. He thinks that he and the Soldier are different. Maybe they are. The Soldier, one of the nameless, has accepted his place. The one who stares has not. He will soon, or he will die faster. “Look at him,” the agent says. “Frankenstein’s monster.”

Frankenstein had been named Zola. He is dead and yet not dead. One that has been allowed to keep his name. He will live forever, never to be fully replaced. The ants are his workers. He is always present.

“You ever seen so many wires sticking out of a guy?” The agent, the nameless arm, thinks that he is being quiet. It is not for the Soldier’s benefit. He does not have ears, not until he is released from the chair. Perhaps it is for the ants, so as to not disturb their work as they rebuild their hill. A gear whirls in the metal arm as an ant triggers a reflex. “An alpha, sittin’ in a hive of omegas and nothin’. Not a damn thing.”

Alpha, omega. Once, those words had meaning. His blood would heat, his body would tremble. He remembers this. Remembers blond hair that smelled like heaven and tiny arms that held surprising strength as they drew him close. He remembers those arms being not so small and a smile that lit up the day, but that is all. He doesn’t know what they mean. The flashes, they are more constant than the ants, always with him whenever he wakes, staying with him through the cold, but they mean just as little. Something that drifts inside of him with no anchor, the shattered remains of someone who had a name.

“Fuck, Jack, that’s an _alpha_.”

“I know,” another nameless agent mutters. He stands farther back, his face twisted in discomfort because he knows something that the other does not, something that the Soldier has known all along. This is all they are, what they all are, what awaits them when they accept the truth.

There’s a sharp smell to him, something that makes the Soldier’s stomach want to knot, but it’s distant, like a phantom ache. It’s no more real than the arm that was taken from him.

“Can you imagine? I mean, you’re an alpha, right? Think about it. All these little omegas feeling you up, touching you, fucking _vulnerable_ , man, and to feel nothing?”

“Shut up.” The other agent, the one who knows, slinks deeper into the shadows, perhaps hoping that the ants won’t notice him there—that they won’t swarm if their master bids.

“I mean, _look_.” One of the ants squeaks as his hand is grabbed and dragged forward. The Soldier looks blankly ahead. He can smell the fear lacing through the base scent and he notes the weakness, files it like he does all the rest, but ultimately, it means nothing. “Nothing, big guy?” the agent says, shaking the hand in front of him. The nameless ant it belongs to swallows. “Not even a taste? Pretty little omega and you don’t want it? Got freezer burn on your dick?”

“Rumlow,” the agent in the shadows growls.

“Come on, just take a whiff.” Fingers touch along his face, sliding along his cheek to the corner of his mouth and he turns towards the unfamiliar sensation. It is…not unpleasant. Scared eyes blink at him from behind thick glasses, the ant’s body stretched out and straining, trying to not touch. There is something there, something like the scent that he thinks that he should know but does not. He breathes in, lets the smell invade his lungs, and holds.

Nothing. The scattered remains inside of him stay where they are. He faces forward again, disinterested.

“Fuck!” the agent says with a laugh. “They did a number on you, didn’t they?” The ant scurries away when he releases it, rejoining the swarm. The others chitter then go back to their work. The agent slinks back to the other half-hidden at the edge of the room. “I’ve seen them give him baths, too.”

“Rumlow.”

“Like, they just reach in there and _grab_. He won’t do it himself.”

“ _Brock_.”

“What?” 

“Watch your mouth.” It’s a good warning, accurate. It falls on deaf ears. 

The loud agent turns and sneers at the room. “These omegas ain’t going to do shit. That alpha sure as hell isn’t.”

“Say that after he’s ripped someone apart,” the one mutters quietly. He turns to go, the other agent following after him. Someday soon, they’ll both be dead. It’s easier that way.

“Seriously,” one of the ants chirps when they are alone in the room again. “Who does he think he is?” 

Someone, the Soldier answers in his head. The man hasn’t realized that he is no one yet. He will.

“If he were an alpha, I’d press charges,” another says.

“Or he’d end up just like this one,” a third replies. Part of the swarm stops for a moment, staring at him, tendrils of fear rising off of them like heat on asphalt. He stares blankly ahead. They are not his targets. Their fear is as meaningless as their names.

“Right…” the first one drawls. “Let’s get him prepped before Agent Rumlow decides to come back.”

They descend upon him, poking and prodding with their machines, checking to make sure that he’s still alive, still functional. They can’t be sure otherwise. The Soldier knows that he is still alive because the machines tell him so. Otherwise, he would doubt.

When the tests are done, the machines done whirring, his metal arm back together, they finally bring in the handler. The handler should have been here all along but one of the named ones had wanted her attention. She bids him to stand and he does, standing at attention before her because it is expected of him. The handler doesn’t smell sweet like the ants, or dark and sharp like the agent in the shadows. Her scent is neutral. They are always neutral.

He waits as each piece of armor is placed upon him, each zipper, each strap, each buckle cinching into place. Knives and guns and ammo are stored in various pockets, quick hands brushing against him as they give him his supplies. Fingers tap against his thigh and he obediently lifts the leg to allow another holster to be strapped to him. They push his leg back down when they’re done and move on. A knife slips into his boot, a gun hooks into place on his back. Through it all, the handler watches carefully, inspecting him.

He’s given a folder, expected to memorize it, and he does, remembering dates, locations, and the names of the soon to be eliminated. He assesses the warnings and parameters and nods when the handler asks if he is done. She takes him to the surface to his temporary team. The dark, deep scent is back and he squares his shoulders against it. Some distant instinct tells him that he should be ready to fight, to defend himself, but he is always ready. He ignores it.

The agents from before stand beside the black van that will transport him to his next location. The one who knows looks at the handler and nods when he is supposed to. The one who still thinks he has a name keeps looking at the Soldier. The Soldier ignores them both. 

He settles into the van. Agents, dark and outfitted, surround him, but none dare to look. They all smell neutral as well, neutral like the handler. It is normal. The scent that makes his stomach want to knot enters the van with the nameless agent and they both glance at each other before looking away.

The agent who is not yet nameless follows and chuckles. “Ain’t no omegas to be fighting over here, boys.” Alpha, omega, flashes of blond hair and an idea that he should know. The Soldier drops his eyes to the floor.

He is nameless. He is nothing. Soon he will go back into the ice and nothing will matter. The mission is all he has.

They take him to a plane and fly for an hour, setting down on a strip of pavement in the middle of a field. From there, it is another van and they start to enter the city. The Soldier has been out of the ice for one day and five hours. He has another two days until he starts to degrade, until the confusion sets in and they must put him back in the ice or send him to the chair again.

He does not like the chair. He does not feel, but if he did, he think he might fear the chair. He would rather sleep in the ice until the end of the world than return to the chair again.

The van parks and the nameless soldiers pile out, arraying themselves in various vantage points. He follows them, feet touching the hard cement of sidewalk and walking forward. The others will follow or they will not. It is all the same to him.

The city hunches around him, bearing down with its long stalks of buildings and ever present hum of people. There’s the stench of crumbling city around him, decayed brick and collected refuse, the smell of poverty. Something inside of him finds it familiar. 

Through it all, however, is a syrupy scent, thick and pleasing, that wraps around him and brings him up short. _Wake up_ , it tells him. _Listen._ _Follow_. He turns a corner.

“Where are you going?” an agent asks. He does not answer. There is no need. He doesn’t know. 

The smell bids him to come closer and he does, a forgotten heat uncurling inside of him, stretching long tendrils through the frost that he’d long thought had consumed his soul. He feels _alive_. His strides become longer, quicker, driven by the need to be closer, to _know_.

“Hey!” the one with the dark scent snaps and he breaks into a run, uncaring of what or who he leaves behind.

Long jolts of electricity crackle along his back, skittering through him, shattering him. He convulses and drops to his knees. 

“What the hell was that?” the not nameless one demands. The Soldier shakes his head. The smell is gone, along with it the brief sense of purpose. He doesn’t know. “I think he’s defective,” he mutters. “Should give him back to the scientists and tell them to do a better job.”

 _The chair_. “I am fully operational,” he states flatly. And he is. His momentarily lapse was only that and he has a mission to complete. He doesn’t require the chair. The scientists. The ants.

“Yeah? Better stay that way.” He ignores the threat and heads towards his mission.

* * *

It is later, when the mission is done, when he is in the wash and the ants are attempting to scrape off the blood that has soaked his hands _(impossible; his hands will never be clean like they once were)_ , that he remembers the scent. Some of the ants have a vague similarity to the cloying richness, the same way a faded photograph resembles its subject. It is an echo of the vividness that was once possessed and it is not enough, but the _memory_. That could sustain him for years, if he is allowed. He stands in the pounding spray of the hoses, bears the rough, impersonal touches of the brushes, and feels his frozen insides start to thaw as he remembers. He stirs, shifting in place.

One of the ants snaps angrily at him and throws a brush. It bounces off his stomach and tumbles to the tiled floor, landing on a drain and causing the water to pool at his feet. He pays it no mind, too focused inward to care, even if such reactions interested him. To protect the memory, however, he pulls it back into himself as it threatens to explode outward like sunlight, hiding it in the darkness of his mind again.

He’d _known_ that smell. He doesn’t know why or how, but he knows that it has something to do with a blond and careful fingers along his jaw, softer than anything he’s ever felt.

He must find it. Somehow, he must keep this from the chair. He doesn’t know how that is possible, if it even is, but he must. He doesn’t even know why.

He’s wondering how he might hide a secret— _he doesn’t wonder; he doesn’t have secrets; that is for the named_ —when Pierce comes to him again. Pierce has been told about his aberration, has been mulling it over. “Could have been an omega in heat,” one ant theorizes. _Omega_ , the Soldier thinks. He had one of those before, he’s sure of it. Something warm glows inside of him, threatening to burst free from his skin and radiate throughout the entire room. He brings it back inside again. Secrets are not for the nameless, but the Soldier has one.

Pierce turns on the one that had dared to speak. The other ants freeze in place. “You told me that that part of him has been neutralized.”

“Mostly,” she hedges. “There’s bound to be some lingering effects.” A muscle ticks in Pierce’s jaw and the ant hunches her shoulders. “A beta would really be more ideal—”

“You do not make demands,” Pierce states, voice deadly with authority. The ants tremble. “You take what you are given and you make it work. Do this or you are useless to me. Do you understand?” And the ants nod because they are the nameless and that is what they do. Even the ones who do not yet understand.

Pierce bends down to face him, gentling his voice like one would to calm an animal. The Soldier is not fooled. Pierce is a dragon pretending to be human. “You’ve been doing good work,” Pierce says. He adds more words and phrases that speak to patriotism and loyalty and other things that the Soldier knows nothing of, stringing them out with “Just one more mission” and “Do you understand?” 

He understands. He understands that once again he will be out in the world without the chair and able to see if he can find the scent again. He bows his head in submission as that is what Pierce likes, what he has always liked during the long years that the Soldier has watched him age, and Pierce gives him a tight smile. Pierce thinks that he has won. He turns and rattles off a speech to the nameless that are surrounding him, ready to intervene if need be, and then tells the ants to get the asset suited back up.

The Soldier, though, is wondering what his name used to be. He wonders if the scent knows.

* * *

The plane touches down in another city, full of endless roads and the full bustle of humanity. He strides through it all and lets instincts propel him forward. He is no longer fully operational. He knows this. He knows that the ants would scurry and chitter with fear and push him down into the chair, strap him in, if they knew. Knows that the nameless agents would go for their weapons, that the yet to be nameless— _Rumlow_ —would bluster and threaten and put him back on the plane to go to the lab. So like the memory of the smell, he keeps it hidden in the black depths of himself. 

And waits.

They set up on a rooftop across from the target’s hotel. He assembles the gun as easily as breathing, the movements instinctual to him, and scouts through the sight. At the door is Rumlow, two floors below that the dark-scented one and more scattered below that all the way to the street. Which is why it comes as a surprise when Rumlow’s radio crackles and the door swings free to knock him to the ground.

The Soldier drops the rifle and turns to see a man in blue tossing Rumlow back down the stairs and rushing forward toward him. His training readies him for a fight, but his instincts scream otherwise. Confusion fogs his mind, cut through with recognition. _The scent_. It’s rich and sweet, like a syrup coating his mind, wrapping his instincts up its sticky residue.

He drops his hands.

“Bucky?” the man in blue, asks.

The Soldier stares at him. “Who the hell is Bucky?” he demands. He wants the answer. He knows that, somehow, it is a key. He grips it with both hands, human and machine. Maybe one will be able to hold on when the other cannot.

“You are,” the man says and pulls off his helmet. Blond hair comes free, more vivid than a memory could ever be and the Soldier stumbles backward. “Careful!”

“You…” He breathes deep, filling his lungs with the thick scent. It curls inside of him, tendrils extending through his limbs, tingling along his nerves and he trembles.

 _Fear._ He remembers fear, shivers with it as it streaks through him. Underneath, though, there is something else, something buried deeper but no less basic. Lust, he thinks. The lust outweighs the fear. He remembers from long ago, Zola’s nameless ants talking about it, injecting him with drug after drug that clouded his mind, divorced himself from his being.

He takes a shambling step forward, feeling as if he is breaking free of melting ice and the man in front of him tries a hesitant smile. “Do you remember me?” he asks.

The Soldier does. It is tied to his very being. “ _Steve_ ,” he whispers. _Omega_. _His_ omega. Steve has a name. Steve always has a name. He is worthy of having one.

Steve nods. “Yes. Yes, that’s me.” He holds his hand out to the Soldier. “Come with me?”

The Soldier cannot refuse, does not want to. He takes the man’s hand. The touch is as electric as the horrors of the chair and for a moment the Soldier trembles in residual terror, memories of pain flooding through him before he remembers that he is on a rooftop with the man in blue, with his omega, and the chair is miles and miles away. With the knowledge comes the realization that for all of its power to make him tremble there is no agony in the omega’s touch, only a pleasure that rushes through him. His heart stops and starts again and he moves closer.

“Be a damn shame to shoot you, Cap,” Rumlow says. He’s standing in front of the door again, his handgun trained on Steve, on his omega. Anger flares inside of the Soldier. “You know how much I respect you. You and your fine ass. So how about you let go of—” The Soldier aims over Steve’s shoulder and gets off a clean if off-center shot to Rumlow’s chest. “Fuck!” Rumlow stumbles back through the doorway, clutching at his chest and tumbles down the stairs.

“Bucky,” Steve says and the Soldier turns to look at him. He pulls Steve to the east side of the building and looks down. The rooftop below is a two story drop. He knows that he can make it, knows that Steve can too, some voice deep inside of himself telling him so, despite the smaller, older voice disagreeing, saying that no, Steve will die, that he must protect Steve at all costs, that Steve is small and frail and life itself. “Bucky?”

“Jump,” the Soldier says and pulls Steve onto the ledge with him. They jump together. Just as he knew they would, they land easily, rolling with the momentum and then they are up and running, the nameless, faceless agents left behind them, milling mindlessly in their own confusion.

He and Steve run far and long, both of them as seemingly free as the wind. Steve catches him before they reach the end of the city, wrapping big arms around him and taking him to the wall. Training tells the Soldier to bring up a knee or drop an elbow, wrap the attacker in a lock, but instinct tells him otherwise. Steve is laughing, sweet and carefree, his smile as bright as the sun as he leans in and buries his nose against the Soldier’s throat.

The Soldier freezes in place, the vulnerability of their positioning inescapable. He has given up his throat and now his life is forfeit. Weakness has killed him. But Steve only noses pleasantly along it, presses a kiss to the skin that makes a noise break free from the Soldier’s lips, surprised and filled to the brim with unknown emotions. The scent is all around him now, engulfing him with its tempting sweetness, draining him of the will to fight even as it resurrects parts of him previously thought dead.

It is too much. The Soldier doesn’t know how to contain this, how to deal with it. His hands scrape over Steve’s shoulders and down his back as he scrambles for some semblance of sense, of self. Steve moans against him, the sound reverberating down to the Soldier’s very core, making him start to shudder. “Bucky…” Steve says. The Soldier nods, his hands gentling on Steve’s body even as his arms tighten. “Bucky, I’ve missed you so much…”

Bucky. Bucky is the Soldier. The Soldier is Bucky. He has a _name_.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky whispers and drops his head to Steve’s shoulder, trusting Steve to hold him, trusting his omega to take care of him like he will take care of his omega.

“Yes,” Steve replies, answering questions that Bucky has yet to ask. Bucky’s eyes prickle along the corners, his face hot and his body thoroughly helpless, flayed open more completely than the chair or the torture ever could.

“You doing okay there, Cap?” a voice asks. Bucky’s head jerks upward and he shoves Steve behind himself, determined to protect that which is his at all costs. He pulls out one of the smaller guns tucked away in his jacket. A tin man looks back at him from ten feet in the air, repulsors slowly lowering him down to the street. “You two need a few minutes? Or, you know, a room? Because I really think that you could do better than a back alley.”

Steve snorts. “Didn’t really care about the atmosphere,” he replies, sounding unconcerned about the threat the man poses. Bucky glances back at Steve and then focuses on the tin man again, confused once more. The tin man smells of metal and energy, and a little of the sweet scent of the ants.

“That’s pretty obvious.” The tin man’s hands drop to his side. “That’s an alpha you have there, Steve.” Steve nods and runs a soothing hand over Bucky’s side. “You sure he’s tame? He looks a little…feral.”

Steve swallows and steps out from behind Bucky. He keeps his hands on Bucky. “He’s been through a lot. Tony, meet Bucky Barnes.”

“Shut the front door.” The tin man’s voice crackles. “ _The_ Bucky Barnes?”

“Yeah. I think it’s about time that he came home.” Steve smiles at Bucky and the lingering ice in Bucky’s soul melts, taking parts of the Soldier with it. “Are you ready to go home?”

Bucky searches Steve’s face for a moment, memorizing the lines of Steve’s smile as he tries to decipher if this is real or just a vivid memory. It can be hard to tell sometimes. In the ice, memories are all that he has. It is the heat of Steve’s hand that grounds him, reminds of where he is and who he’s with. Reminds him of who _he_ is. The years weigh heavy on Bucky’s shoulders, pushing him down into the Earth, and he feels suddenly tired, like it is too much to even stand. He would very much like to sleep, curve his body around Steve’s, bury his nose against Steve’s skin and breathe him in, hold him until he’s ready to face the world again. 

Bucky has a name. He is a person. And he has Steve. What does he need besides that?

“Yeah,” he answers. He’s ready to go home. He doesn’t know where that is anymore, but he knows that it will be wherever Steve happens to be.

Steve’s smile reminds him of something else that he’d forgotten: hope.


End file.
